Saudi Arabia and Iran are beginning a competition for influence with the new government led by Imran Khan in Pakistan. Both have big stakes involved. The Saudi position is much weakened by the war in Yemen, which is unpopular in Pakistan. Pakistan’s position is crucially important to both Riyadh and Tehran. Pakistan is the second-most…
Tensions between the United States and China seem to be defining the bilateral relationship between the two countries these days. From a growing trade war to the Trump administration’s characterization of China as a “strategic competitor seeking to undermine U.S. power and influence” in its 2017 National Security Strategy , political and economic relations appear…
Rival Great Powers Iran and Saudi Arabia are both experiencing different degrees of pushback from certain “deep state” factions in their permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies, with this dynamic being responsible for several of the latest breaking news developments in the region. Four breaking news developments almost simultaneously emerged from the Persian Gulf region…
It was supposed to be a low-key, traditional Austrian wedding until Vladimir Putin pulled up in a black limo. The bride was Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl, a top energy analyst and former professor at the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna and the European Business School in Frankfurt. She knows all there is to know about…
The five countries of the Caspian Sea region signed an agreement on the body of water’s official status and agreed to work together with one another to prevent conflicts. President Putin hailed the Convention on the Caspian Sea’s Legal Status for its “landmark significance” because it’s the first time that all the relevant states agreed…
One thing already seems clear in the Trump era: the world will not turn out to be the American president’s playground. His ultra-unilateralist, rejectionist policies on trade, the Iran denuclearization agreement, the costs of defense, and climate change are already creating an incipient anti-Trump movement globally (and in the United States as well). To a…
